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LISWire: Hartland and Chelsea Public Libraries join VOKAL and Go Live on Koha with ByWater Solutions
0December 3rd, 2012LISWire12/3/2012
CONTACT:
Nathan Curulla
(888) 900-8944
sales@bywatersolutions.comHartland and Chelsea Public Libraries join VOKAL and Go Live on Koha with ByWater Solutions
ByWater Solutions, an open source community supporter and the US’s forefront provider of Koha (www.koha-community.org) support, is happy to welcome both the Hartland and Chelsea Public Libraries to the Vermont Organization of Koha Automated Libraries (VOKAL). Both libraries are now live on the Koha integrated library system through VOKAL.
VOKAL now has 34 libraries using the system which contains 695,000+ items available to 67,000+ patrons. The Hartland and Chelsea libraries add over 13,000 new titles and nearly 35,000 new items to the shared collection.
Virgil Fuller, Library Director, Chelsea Public Library commented on the migration experience:
“Going to Koha and being a part of the VOKAL system is a wonderful opportunity for the Chelsea Public Library for both staff and patrons alike. For our patrons it means they will be able to access their account at home, place items on hold, see their reading history, renew their items and much more that was not available to them before. For staff, the ease of running the reports, sending out notifications and cataloging is a far and away improvement from what we had before. It was great working with the knowledgeable staff at ByWater Solutions through the migration process- they answered every question I had in a timely manner and all of our data moved over seamlessly. They made the transition very easy for us from the moment I first emailed them about doing our data to the moment we went live and I know they will continue to offer great service now that we are up and running!”
Mary Danko, Hartland Public Library, expressed her excitement at having the library join VOKAL and use Koha:
“We are so excited to be a part of the VOKAL system. Our patrons love seeing other library’s holdings and they love the many great features of Koha. I have really been amazed at how easy the transition has been for our staff and our volunteers. Koha is very intuitive and seamless.”
About the Vermont Organization of Koha Automated Libraries (VOKAL):
The Vermont Organization of Koha Automated Libraries (VOKAL), is a project of the Green Mountain Library Consortium dedicated to creating a shared catalog and Integrated Library System.
In 2007, the Stowe Free Library, the Carpenter-Carse Library (Hinesburg), and the Kimball Public Library (Randolph) joined with Sheila Kearns of the Vermont Department of Libraries to explore options for an ILS system to replace Follett. They decided on Koha, and in May of 2008, this team became VOKAL. For more information about VOKAL, please visit: https://sites.google.com/site/vokalvtpublic/home
About Koha:
Koha is the first open-source Integrated Library System (ILS). In use worldwide, its development is steered by a growing community of libraries collaborating to achieve their technology goals. Koha’s impressive feature set continues to evolve and expand to meet the needs of its user base. It includes modules for circulation, cataloging, acquisitions, serials, reserves, patron management, branch relationships, and more.
Koha’s OPAC, circulation, management and self-checkout interfaces are all based on standards-compliant World Wide Web technologies–XHTML, CSS and Javascript–making Koha a truly platform-independent solution. Koha is distributed under the open-source General Public License (GPL). For more information about Koha, please visit: http://koha-community.org
About ByWater Solutions:
With over 10 years of experience, ByWater Solutions offers customized hosting, data migration, configuration, installation, training, support options and development of the enterprise class open source library system, Koha. Offering a 24/7 technical helpline, ByWater Solutions’ clients have the support system they need to make their software work for them. ByWater Solutions pledges to share 100% of all developed code to the Koha community for the strengthening and advancement of the Koha ILS. For more information about ByWater Solutions, please visit: http://www.bywatersolutions.com
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